On Sweet Street

COMMUNITY LIFE

Springs Couple Creates Mouth-watering Gingerbread Village Display.

Coral Springs residents Roger Anderson and his wife, Amale, built a church, a school, a house and a store without ever touching a drop of cement. They used flour and sugar instead.

Both are chefs and they designed and constructed an edible gingerbread village complete with a glimmering lake, sparkling drifts of sugar snow and a schoolhouse adorned with lampposts made of candy canes and Life Savers.

"It took 70 to 80 hours to complete," said Amale Anderson, 30, a pre-law student who worked as a pastry chef for seven years. "I am very proud of it."

Displayed behind glass in the lobby of the Crystal Lake Country Club, 3800 Crystal Lake Drive in unincorporated Broward County near Pompano Beach, the candyland draws curious admirers. Often, they want to leave with a bite.

"People will come in and say, `Oh, isn't that beautiful. Can't I taste it?'" said Ginie Lauer, hostess at the country club."Everyone wants to touch it and take pictures. That's some workmanship."

Roger Anderson said a gingerbread house exhibited last year got munched on.

"They eat the stuff off of it," said Anderson, 38, who hopes to preserve his sweet village for at least a year. "That's why we had to put the glass up this year."

Roger Anderson, the country club's executive chef, and his wife worked on the project for about a month, often into the wee hours of the morning. It took a lot of patience and a lot of flour, sugar and egg whites.

The couple used 100 pounds of flour to bake 24 sheets of gingerbread; 15 dozen egg whites and 24 pounds of powdered sugar for the frosting; and 40 pounds of granulated sugar for the snow.

The couple sketched the village on paper, then designed patterns which they cut from Styrofoam. They melted hard candy to make stained glass windows, and used Shredded Wheat squares, Triscuit crackers and cookies to shingle the various buildings.

Shutters on the school are made from vanilla wafers; a pile of chopped wood is really a bundle of pretzels; the walkway in front of the one-room schoolhouse is made of red hots; and a Santa mural of colored frosting decorates the rear of the toy store.

Each building weighs about 25 pounds, and is assembled on a wooden base with a hole cut in it so a light can be placed inside, Roger Anderson said.

The house, which has paper lace doily curtains, is adorned with tiny Christmas lights, and red and white candy cane window sills.

Porcelain figurines of children, adults and animals are scattered throughout the display.

"It's creativity," Roger Anderson said. "There are a lot of opportunities. It's like building a miniature house."

Amale Anderson said she just hopes people will come by to see the village. It will be on display through Jan. 1.

"Some people tell me they would like to crawl inside and live in it," she said.

The Andersons are used to collaborating on cooking projects. Roger Anderson gave Amale her first job as a pastry chef seven years ago in Jacksonville. They married two years later and have been cooking together ever since.

When they were in Jacksonville, they taught a holiday cooking class on a local television channel.

"We work well together and we give each other ideas," Amale Anderson said. The couple had few mishaps while constructing their holiday candyland. The church steeple broke once, but that was about it. Setting up the display took almost eight hours.

They didn't fret about the buildings collapsing or the frosting flaking. Their biggest worry was ants.

"It was a concern. If you get those sugar ants, they come by the millions. They would never go away," Roger Anderson said. But so far, everything has been sweet.

"We haven't had any," he said, laughing.

Visitors can see the gingerbread village from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week.